Land Surveyor in Madison County, Illinois

Madison County covers a lot of different ground. The western edge is flat bottomland along the Mississippi, home to Granite City, Madison, Venice and the industrial corridor around Wood River and Hartford. Climb the bluffs and the county turns into older river towns like Alton and Godfrey, then commuter suburbs, then open farmland stretching east toward Highland, Marine and St. Jacob. A survey request from one end of the county can look nothing like one from the other, so we ask about the parcel before confirming a price.

All recorded land documents for the county, including deeds, plats and easements, are filed with the Madison County Recorder in the administration building in Edwardsville. The county's Maps & Plats staff keep the tax map side of the picture, and the Madison County GIS Viewer shows parcel outlines, aerials and other layers in one place. Those tools are useful for research, but parcel outlines on a tax map are approximations. A licensed surveyor on our team or in our network relies on the recorded descriptions and monuments found in the field.

Flood risk here comes from two directions. Along the river, the American Bottom sits behind levees that were rebuilt over the past decade under the Southwestern Illinois Flood Prevention District, and flood maps reflect that work. Inland, Cahokia Creek, Indian Creek and their tributaries drain much of the county's centre, and the county has worked on watershed planning for that system. An elevation certificate is the usual answer when a lender flags a building near either kind of water.